1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates to television program and advertisement marketing research and rating services, to television viewer survey and response systems, to collecting, collating and evaluating television advertisement and program research data, including operation of television viewer evaluation and response panels, and to systems of determining preferences and quantities of television viewers in terms of broadcast television programs or advertisements.
2. Information Disclosure Statement
The folowing disclosure statement is made pursuant to the duty of disclosure imposed by law and formulated in 37 CFR 1.56(a). No representation is hereby made that information thus disclosed in fact constitutes prior art, inasmuch as 37 CFR 1.56(a) relies on a materiality concept which depends on uncertain and inevitably subjective elements of substantial likelihood and reasonableness and inasmuch as a growing attitude appears to require citation of material which might lead to a discovery of pertinent material though not necessarily being of itself pertinent. Also, the following comments contain conclusions and observations which have only been drawn or become apparent after conception of the subject invention or which contrast the subject invention or its merits against the background of developments which may be subsequent in time or priority.
Statistically, television viewers across the United States watch television an average of 6.18 hours per day, or 7.3 hours for families with children. Deducting time for work and sleep, a very significant portion cf the lives of a population of over 200,000,000 people is thus taken up by an activity which is playing a substantial role for most people. Any improvement in the quality of such activity thus benefits a very significant aspect of contemporary American life.
The situation is rapidly assuming comparable proportions in many foreign countries, where television is becoming increasingly popular.
Since an increasing number of programs first shown on American television are now regularly televised in other countries as well, improvement of television program quality in the United States is assuming a global significance. Of course, with the proliferation of television channels at home and abroad, it is in each country's interest that those responsible for programming in any of several countries participating in a multinational exchange of television programming exercise utmost care in assuring top quality based on a realistic viewer response. In short, television program quality control is becoming a matter of multinational responsibility in the United States and in an increasing number of other countries.
Of course, such a responsibility cannot even be assumed, let alone discharged, without adequate tech nology for its implementation. Ideally, such a technology would be in tune with a self-regulating approach, where consumers, or here viewers, would through their feedback to the producer spark corrective and even creative activity by a true indication of their wants and needs. This would also have an ameliorative effect on television advertising or commercials, so that television advertisement surveyance and rating is important as well.
Early television program rating ystems which employed manually actualable response units practically required participating viewers to be assembled in an auditorium where a particular show or program was being displayed at the time the viewer reactions were taken, as may, for instance, be seen from U.S. Pat. No. 2,712,976, by P. H. Blaustein et al, issued July 12, 1955 for an audience reaction system. Such an approach is more attuned to motion pictures and theatrical performances, than to continuous television rating. In fact, it is not seen how realistic television ratings with real-life television viewer reaction would even be feasible when viewers are assembled together in an auditorium.
More realistic responses can be expected from the known rating services that utilize panels of television viewers in their homes in various parts of the country. However, there is increasing criticism that the rating system which has had the most severe impact on television programming has been carried on with little technological innovation over the years.
This despite the fact that there has been a proliferation of technological proposals, as may, for instance, be seen from British Pat. No. 1,389,717, by Intomart, N. V., published Apr. 9, 1975 for apparatus for determining the listening and viewing habits for radio and television receiver users, British Pat. No. 1,536,414, by A. F. Kaldor, published Dec. 20, 1978 for television audience survey systems, U.S. Pat. No. 2,958,766, by C. R. Evans, issued Nov. 1, 1960 for automatic audience rating systems, U.S. Pat. No. 2,985,498, by R. L. Freeman, issued May 23, 1961 for a compositing system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,012,179, by R. L. Freeman, issued Dec. 5, 1961 for a power failure indicating device, U.S. Pat. No. 3,056,135, by C. H. Currey et al, issued Sept. 25, 1962 for a method and apparatus for automatically determining the listening habits of wave signal receiver users, U.S. Pat. No. 3,070,798, by C. H. Currey et al, issued Dec. 25, 1962 for a system for determining the listening habits of wave signal receiver users, U.S. Pat. No. 3,088,093, by R. L. Freeman et al, issued Apr. 30, 1963 for wave signal receiver monitoring apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 3,102,685, by M. R. Speiser et al, issued Sept. 3, 1963 for a voting machine, U.S. Pat. No. 3,143,705, by C. H. Currey et al, issued Aug. 4, 1964 for a system for determining whether local stations are transmitting network programs, U.S. Pat. No. 3,148,245, by C. H. Currey et al, issued Sept. 8, 1964 for a system for determining the listening habits of wave signal receiver users, U.S. Pat. No. 3,289,170, by C. H. Currey et al, issued Nov. 29, 1966 for a data transmitting and receiving system using pulse width modulation, U.S. Pat. No. 3,323,112, by D. E. Haselwood et al, issued May 30, 1967 for a data handling system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,372,233, by C. H. Currey, issued Mar. 5, 1968 for a horizontal and vertical sync signal comparison system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,405,393, by D. E. Haselwood, issued Oct. 8, 1968 for a data handling system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,408,629, by D. E. Haselwood, issued Oct. 29, 1968 for a data handling system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,387,797, by H. A. Rahmel et al, issued June 11, 1968 for a tape recorder, U.S. Pat. No. 3,453,641, by H. A. Rahmel, issued July 1, 1969 for an audience measuring system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,651,471, by D. E. Haselwood et al, issued Mar. 21, 1972 for a data storage and transmission system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,742,462, by D. E. Haselwood et al, issued June 26, 1973 for a data synchronizing unit for data transmission system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,742,463, by D. E. Haselwood et al, issued June 26, 1973 for a data storage and transmission system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,772,649, by D. E. Haselwood et al, issued Nov. 13, 1973 for a data interface unit for insuring the error free transmission of fixed-length data sets which are transmitted repeatedly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,919,479, by W. D. Moon et al, issued Nov. 11, 1975 for a broadcast signal identification system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,973,206, by D. E. Haselwood et al, issued Aug. 3, 1976 for a monitoring system for voltage tunable receivers and converters utilizing an analog function generator, U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,851, by D. E. Haselwood et al, issued May 24, 1977 for automatic monitor for programs broadcast, U.S. Pat. No. 4,038,504, by J. C. McAnulty et al, issued July 26, 1977 for a rotary, printed circuit wafer switch and method for adjusting, U.S. Pat. No. 4,048,562, by D. E. Haselwood et al, isued Sept. 13, 1977 for a monitoring system for voltage tunable receivers and converters utilizing voltage comparison techniques, U.S. Pat. No. 4,208,652, by R. Marshall, issued June 17, 1980 for a method and apparatus for identifying images, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,425,578, by D. E. Haselwood et al, issued Jan. 10, 1984 for a monitoring system and method utilizing signal injection for determining channel reception of video receivers.
Reference may also be had to U.S. Pat. No. 3,483,327, by A. Schwartz, issued Dec. 9, 1969 for a transponder for monitoring television program selections, U.S. Pat. No. 3,512,139, by A. C. Reynolds, Jr. et al, issued May 12, 1970 for a system and apparatus for automatic data collection, U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,127, by E. G. Blumke et al, issued June 4, 1974 for a data entry device, U.S. Pat. No. 4,041,455, by G. R. Norberg, issued Aug. 9, 1977 for an interrogation and monitoring system, U.S. Pat. No. 4,044,376, by J. L. Porter, issued Aug. 23, 1977 for a television monitor, U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,829, by J. R. Thompson, issued Nov. 15, 1977 for a television monitor, U.S. Pat. No. 4,298,860, by G. R. Norberg et al, issued Nov. 3, 1981 for a monitor and control apparatus, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,463, by R. F. Vangen, issued June 29, 1982 for a time synchronization master station and remote station system, U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,110, by D. C. Southward et al, issued Sept. 14, 1971 for events recorders for sending and recording changes primarily in the tuning of television receivers, U.S. Pat. No. 4,331,973, by G. J. Eskin et al, issued May 25, 1982 for a panelist response scanning system, U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,511, by P. E. Smith, issued Jan. 28, 1986 for transmitting and storing data relating to television viewing, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,733,430, by J. R. Thompson et al, issued May 15, 1973, for a channel monitoring system.
Those prior-art systems which rely on interviewing of selected television viewers by market researchers lack spontaneity and are very time consuming, so as to limit their widespread applicability. Accordingly, such approaches are often combined with systems that try to measure popularity on the basis of a determination of the individual channels to which selected television sets are tuned at particular times.
In practice, such systems, whether used alone or in conjunction with personal interviews, are becoming increasingly inaccurate if the polling cycle is longer than the average period during which television viewers will change channels, and if there is no safeguard of counting television sets as viewers, even if no one is watching while the television set is running in an empty room.
For a critical article on this subject, reference may be had to Joel Swerdlow, "The Ratings Game," (Washington Journalism Review, September-October 1979). The top illustration of that article shows television viewers having electrodes attached to their temples for determining what they really think about a television program they are watching. Hopefully, such a drastic viewer response system, even if technologically feasible, will never be acceptable. However, systems which determine reactions to television programs from the viewer's body in partial similarity to a polygraph lie detector have been proposed.
However, setups which impose changes on viewing habits or serious strictures on the participating viewers' comfort inherently tend to falsify survey results. This deficiency has been well summarized in a related area, where it has been stated that, "A particular problem is that the method of exposure of the selected group to the promotional material may skew the results; that is, the testing itself may influence the results independently of the material being tested," as pointed out in U.S. Pat. No. 4,331,974, by N. W. Cogswell et al, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,404,589, by W. A. Wright, Jr., issued, respectively, May 25, 1982 and Sept. 13, 1983, for cable television with controlled or multi-event signal substitution.
In the last ten years, great progress has been made with the type of system disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,107,734 and 4,308,554 by R. D. Percy et al, issued respectively, Aug. 15, 1978 and Dec. 29, 1981, for television viewer reaction determining systems characterized by several features which make for high viewer spontaneity. For a sideline of that approach, reference may be had to U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,735, by H. F. Frohbach, issued Aug. 15, 1978 for television audience survey system providing feedback of cumulative survey results to individual television viewers, and providing graphic records of viewer responses for subsequent review.
Spontaneity and variety of viewer response were further enhanced by the type of method and apparatus disclosed in the allowed co-pending patent application 06/138,058, filed Apr. 7, 1980 by P. C. and R. D. Percy, for television viewer reaction determining systems, now U.S. Pat No. 4,646.145 issued Feb 24, 1987, and herewith incorporated by reference herein.
The latter systems permit viewers to express their opinions in various respects and to identify themselves to the data gathering facility. Viewers on a larger scale have been quite cooperative in operating the kind of response units disclosed in the latter patent application or patent. On the other hand, a system which operates without active viewer participation would have a broader appeal and would perhaps improve the quality of the rating data with respect to people who are either influenced in their response by the need of having to actuate a response unit or who have trouble operating such a unit accurately and reliably.
The subject invention is new and non-obvious as far as the combinations set forth in the claims thereof are concerned. However, technology for implementing individual elements of the claimed combinations may be borrowed from non-related or non-analogous art.
Reference may in this respect be had to U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,130, by A. Cohen et al, issued Dec. 2, 1975, for a body exposure indicator, U.S. Pat. No. 4,001,613, by V. E. Hills et al, issued Jan. 4, 1977 for a proximity sensing circuit, U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,425, by C. E. Williams et al, issued Apr. 1, 1980 for a patient activity monitoring system, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,346,427, by K. Blissett et al, issued Aug. 24, 1982 for a control device responsive to infrared radiation. The disclosures of these patents are herewith incorporated by reference herein.
The inability of the prior art to meet the problems solved by the subject invention stand in contrast to an ongoing proliferation of proposals which exceeds the above voluminous lists of references. The references cited in the above mentioned Frohbach and Percy et al patents or patent application, and in any other patent, for that matter, may further be consulted in this respect.